The Global Competitiveness Report 2016-2017 assesses the competitiveness landscape of 138 economies, providing insight into the drivers of their productivity and prosperity.

This year’s edition highlights that declining openness is threatening growth and prosperity. It also highlights that monetary stimulus measures such as quantitative easing are not enough to sustain growth and must be accompanied by competitiveness reforms. Final key finding points to the fact that updated business practices and investment in innovation are now as important as infrastructure, skills and efficient markets.

Switzerland, Singapore and the United States remain the three world’s most competitive economies. Mauritius (ranking 45th) and South Africa (47th) remain Africa's most competitive economies, climbing two places and one place, respectively. South Africa maintains its regional leadership in terms of financial markets, competition, infrastructure, and education, despite recent challenges from exchange rate volatility, governance concerns, and policy uncertainty, as reflected in the institutions pillar.

Five sub-Saharan Africa economies improve their GCI rankings by three to six positions and their scores by 2 percent or more: Rwanda (52nd), Botswana (64th), Ghana (114th), Tanzania (116th), and Sierra Leone (132nd). Ghana, which improves the most, advances in labor market efficiency; along with Rwanda and Tanzania, it also strengthens its macroeconomic environment and improves its infrastructure, education, and institutions. Sierra Leone’s five-place rise is mainly thanks to recovering health conditions and infrastructure, while Botswana also gains five places thanks to a better performance in infrastructure, higher education, and goods market efficiency.

Summary: In 2015, labour productivity grew at a lower rate of 1.7% compared to 2.3% in 2014. This was the result of a lower Gross Value Added (GVA) growth of 3.0% coupled with a growth of 1.3% in labour input in 2015. In 2014, GVA grew by 3.6 % and labour input by 1.3%. Capital productivity registered an increase of 0.8% in 2015, same as in 2014. The 0.8% increase in 2015 is explained by a lower growth in capital input (2.2%) compared to that of GVA (3.0%). A growth of 0.9% has been observed in the average annual change in Multi Factor Productivity during the period 2005 to 2015. A growth of 1.1% in MFP was registered in 2015, same as in 2014. During the period 2005 to 2015, average annual compensation of employees increased by 7.0% whilst labour productivity grew by 2.8%. The higher growth in average compensation of employees compared to that of labour productivity resulted in an average annual growth of 4.1% in Unit Labour Cost (ULC). In 2015, ULC grew by 0.7% compared to a fall of 0.1% in 2014.

From 2007 to 2015, real output in the manufacturing sector grew on average by 2.1% annually. No growth was recorded in 2015 while it was 1.8% in 2014. During the period 2007 to 2015, labour input declined annually by an average of 0.5% and capital input by 1.8%. In 2015, labour input decreased by 0.4% while capital input declined by 4.5% compared to an increase of 1.2% in labour input and contraction of 0.1% in capital input in 2014. Productivity trends during the period 2007 to 2015, labour productivity in the manufacturing sector registered an average annual growth of 2.6% and capital productivity increased by an average of 4.0% annually. This was the result of growth of 2.1% in real output and declines of 1.8% and 0.5% in capital input and labour input respectively. During the same period, multifactor productivity increased by an average of 3.1% per annum. In 2015, labour productivity in manufacturing grew by 0.4%, lower than the 0.6% growth in 2014. Capital and multifactor productivity witnessed increases of 4.7% and 2.1% respectively in 2015 compared to increases of 1.9% and 1.1% in 2014.

Summary: During the period 2007 to 2015, the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in real terms grew by an annual average of 3.7%. During the same period, the real output of the Manufacturing sector grew at a lower rate of 2.2% per annum and that of Export Oriented Enterprises (EOE) increased at an annual rate of 1.4%.

From 2007 to 2015, labour input for the whole economy grew by an average of 1.5% annually, while that for the manufacturing sector and EOE declined by 0.5% and 2.7% respectively. Labour productivity, as measured by real output per person engaged, grew by an average of 2.2% annually for the whole economy. Higher growths of 2.7% and 4.2% were registered in Manufacturing and EOE respectively during the same period.

In 2015, labour input witnessed an increase of 1.3%, same as in 2014; while GDP growth in 2015 was 3.1%, lower than the growth of 3.4% registered in 2014. Thus, labour productivity for the economy grew by 1.8% in 2015, lower than the 2.1% growth registered in 2014. Labour productivity for Manufacturing increased by 0.7% in 2015, lower than the growth of 1.0% in 2014. On the other hand, EOE witnessed an increase of 0.4% in 2015 after a decline of 0.7% in 2014.

During the period 2007 to 2015, capital input grew at an average annual rate of 4.3% for the total economy whereas declines of 1.8% and 3.9% were recorded in Manufacturing and EOE respectively. However, because of low growth in output compared to capital input, capital productivity defined as the ratio of output to capital input, declined by 0.5% for the economy during the period 2007 to 2015. On the other hand, increases of 4.1% and 5.5% were registered in capital productivity of Manufacturing and EOE respectively.

Capital productivity for the economy increased by 0.9% in 2015 compared to 0.6% in 2014. This was due to a higher growth in GDP (3.1%) than in capital input (2.2%).

From 2007 to 2015, average compensation of employees increased by an average of 5.6% annually for the whole economy and by 5.9% for Manufacturing and 7.1% for EOE. Unit Labour Cost (ULC) defined as the remuneration of labour (compensation of employees) per unit of output, grew at an average annual rate of 3.3% for the total economy, 3.1% for Manufacturing and 2.8% for EOE, as a result of higher growths in average compensation of employees compared to labour productivity.

During the same period, due to depreciation of the rupee, ULC in Dollar terms, increased at an average annual rate of 1.9% for the total economy, 1.7% for Manufacturing and 1.4% for EOE.

In 2015, ULC (in rupees) for the economy rose further by 0.9% after an increase of 2.5% in 2014 while that of the manufacturing sector rose by 2.6% after increasing by 1.8% in 2014. In the EOE sector ULC registered an increase of 3.5% in 2015 after a growth of 4.3% in 2014. In Dollar terms, ULC in 2015 fell by 12.1% for the whole economy, 10.7% for Manufacturing and 9.8% for EOE.

Summary: The 2015-2016 edition is being launched at a pivotal time for the global economy. On the one hand, economic development is characterized by the 'new normal' of higher unemployment, lower productivity growth, and subdued economic growth that could still be derailed by uncertainties such as geopolitical tensions, the future path of emerging markets, energy prices, and currency changes. On the other hand, other recent developments show great promise - the so-called fourth industrial revolution and new ways of consuming such as the sharing economy could lead to another wave of significant innovations that drive growth. At the same time, across countries we are witnessing economic policymaking that become increasingly people-centered and embedded in overall societal goals. The report presents current thinking about the drivers of competitiveness from a conceptual point of view and suggests a set of preliminary measurements toward an updated index. The result is a multi-year research project of the World Economic Forum. Its goal is to provide a basis for discussing the evolving concepts and measurements of competitiveness. In the course of the coming year, it is being planned to validate the concepts and measures with experts, policymakers, and businesses.

The Global Competitiveness Report 2015-2016 presents the rankings of the Global Competitiveness Index (GCI) based on 12 pillars that provide a comprehensive picture of the competitiveness landscape in countries around the world at different stages of economic development. The report contains detailed profiles highlighting competitive strengths and weaknesses for each of the 140 economies featured.

As far as Mauritius is concerned, the decade-long improvement comes to a halt this year with a fall of seven places to 46th. Small improvements in the basic factors for competitiveness - institutions (34th, up one), infrastructure (37th, up five), and higher education (52, up two ) are offset by declines in the efficiency of labor (down by five places to 57th) and the financial market (down by eight places to 34th). Despite this, Mauritius remains sub-Saharan Africa’s most competitive economy, ahead of South Africa in 49th. It boasts the region’s best infrastructure (37th), most healthy and educated workforce (63rd on health and 52nd in higher education and training), and most efficient goods market (25th). Institutions are a further asset (34th). However, as the country transitions moves up the development ladder, more needs to be done to unlock the areas of competitiveness conducive to a knowledge-driven economy: higher education, especially its quality; the use of ICTs and ability to absorb new technologies (65th), where it has steadily declined over the past decade; the capacity to innovate, about which business leaders are particularly concerned; and an inadequately educated workforce.

MAURITIUS - Systematic Country Diagnostic - June 25, 2015 by the World Bank

Mauritius has been a success story since independence, moving from low income to upper middle-income status. Close public-private partnerships facilitated private sector-led growth in a stable macroeconomic and institutional environment. The government implemented an active industrial policy to support private sector competitiveness while exploiting global trade niches created by preferential access arrangements. As a result, savings were high and reinvested in diversifying the economy. Starting as a mono-cropped, inward-looking economy, Mauritius moved toward an export oriented and diversified economy producing textiles, tourism, financial and ICT services.

The
Global Competitiveness Report 2014-2015 which assesses the
competitiveness landscape of 144 economies has placed Mauritius 39th in
the Global Competitiveness Index and 1st in Sub Saharan Africa.
Mauritius has moved up 6 places in this Index published by the World
Economic Forum. Ranked first in Sub-Saharan Africa for the second year,
Mauritius has consolidated its position as the Sub-Saharan African
leader in competitiveness. The top 10 countries in terms of
competitiveness are Switzerland, Singapore, United States, Finland,
Germany, Japan, Hong Kong SAR, Netherlands, United Kingdom and Sweden.